Le assaggiatrici

The first time she enters the room where she will eat her next few meals, Rosa Sauer is hungry. “We’d been hungry and afraid for years,” she says. With her are nine other women from Gross-Partsch, a village near the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s headquarters hidden in the forest. It is the autumn of ’43; Rosa has just arrived from Berlin to escape the bombing and is staying with her in-laws whilst her husband, Gregor, is fighting on the Eastern Front. When the SS order, “Eat”, faced with the overflowing plate, hunger gets the better of her; immediately afterwards, however, fear takes over: the food tasters must remain under observation for an hour so that the guards can ensure the food to be served to the Führer is not poisoned. Within the confines of the forced canteen, alliances, friendships and hidden rivalries develop amongst the young women. To the others, Rosa is the outsider: she finds it difficult to win their favour, yet she catches herself seeking it. This is particularly true with Elfriede, the girl who appears the most hostile, yet the most charismatic. Then, in the spring of ’44, Lieutenant Ziegler arrives at the barracks and instils a climate of terror. Whilst the Führer looms over everyone – like a sort of deity who never appears – an unprecedented bond forms between Ziegler and Rosa.